Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 363. 

Welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck. 

Angela: Well, hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast this week. I have a very special treat for you. We have another interview. We’re just getting all the interviews on the podcast and I love it because as you guys know, I really vet people out. I don’t want this to be a big infomercial. I don’t want you to feel like you’re being solicited to when you listen to this. I want you to come to The Empowered Principal® Podcast and feel like you’re getting your values worth for your time. 

Today, I definitely have some wonderful ladies here who are going to share some amazing resources with you today, and I’m so excited to have them. I have Andra and Sarah, and they are the founders of the Principal Exchange and I believe also the Teacher Exchange, is that correct? 

Andra: So yes, it’s the Principal Exchange and then our other business is Tailored Education where we do have resources on there specifically for principals to use with teachers. 

Angela: Yes. Okay. So as you can see, I’m still learning about their services, but we had a little meet and greet last week a couple weeks ago and I just fell in love with these ladies. I love the concept. I love what they’re doing to support school leaders and to educators across the board, but their work’s really fun. I want you to learn about it, hear about it. 

So I’m going to turn it over to them and let them explain what the Principal Exchange is, how to access it, all the goodies that are inside, and we’re going to chat it up because I want you to hear the value that you can walk away with today as a result of the work that they’re doing. So welcome to the podcast, ladies. 

Andra: Thank you. 

Sarah: Hey, thanks for having us.

Angela: Yeah, so introduce yourselves and tell them a little bit about who you are, your background, and what inspired this idea, this concept of the Principal Exchange. 

Andra: Sure. So this is Andra from the Principal Exchange. To give you a little background about our educational experience, prior to Tailored Education or the Principal Exchange, we worked in public education as classroom teachers, moving to reading specialists, instructional coaches, ending on the admin team before we decided that we really could have a bigger impact outside of the schools reaching educators in general across the country.

So we started Tailored Education, and Tailored Education supports new teachers, principals. We sell like resources to schools. We do professional development. We wrote a book, Bashing Boredom, on student engagement because we felt like that was a big need. 

In doing that, we started seeing principals all over as we were visiting schools and building these relationships and seeing what really they struggled with and that they were kind of isolated, and that they didn’t have the supports that maybe teachers had through websites and resources and even just the colleagues in their building. That’s kind of what springboarded the thought of the Principal Exchange and getting this started.

Sarah: Yeah. As we traveled around, we went to all kinds of different places and found that especially in some of these places that were like more landlocked or small districts, it wasn’t uncommon for a district to just have like an elementary principal, a middle school principal, and then a high school principal. So there was no form of collaboration. They weren’t getting some kind of a curriculum to use. They were juggling all kinds of things, and they were there all hours of every day. 

I mean, really, it was just a struggle for them. We saw that. So we started to really think about okay, how can we help solve this problem too? Because like we value teachers so much, but we’ve got to have great school leaders too, and we need to fill their cups too. So that was really where we started. We kind of took that idea and ran with it, and it turned into the Principal Exchange. 

What that is, it’s like a platform. It’s a website, kind of an online marketplace, like a Teachers Pay Teachers or Etsy. It’s where a bunch of principals have came together and made their little like digital mini stores, you might could say, where they are uploading resources that are specifically designed for principals. These resources range from support with like classroom management, data trackers, climate and culture builders, really anything you could think of, you can find it there.

They’re putting all of that out there as a place for principals to come and find what they need so that they’re not having to create it from scratch. They’re getting new ideas and they can really save some time and feel like there’s some level of support for them too. 

Andra: We also found in doing this as we were talking with principals, a lot of principals end up having like a second job or feeling like they need something. We knew that was true maybe of teachers, but we didn’t realize how many principals felt that way. 

So to be a vendor on the page, it’s not a way to earn like a huge second income, but at least it’s another revenue stream for something that somebody is doing and already creating. They have these ideas that they can share with other people. So we wanted to support them in that way as well too. 

Angela: Yeah.

Angela: It feels like it’s like an Etsy or like kind of like an online farmer’s market. You can go to the little vendors and pick like oh, I need something on staff development or oh, I need something on like tracking systems. Or there’s different vendors. So the vendors are actual real principals and educators who have designed tools that work for them. If it works for you, you’re welcome to come and peruse and purchase if you want to. 

It’s such a cool way of just being able to share our experiences, our wisdoms, like our little area of expertise in the world of education and to allow people to benefit from that, you know, from the tool that we’ve created. So I think it’s brilliant. 

Andra: Well, thank you. We hope so. The vendors on there are awesome. They’ve really thought of like even categories that we hadn’t thought of to bring products in for. We also say like, if you don’t see what you need on there, let us know because there might be a vendor out there that’s willing to create it or has something that they didn’t think to put up on there. So it’s just an ever evolving platform. 

Angela: Yeah. It’s almost like you’re searching on Amazon, and you’re looking for whatever product it is that you need. It sounds like it’s in the categories and then they can look and see. People have different because it’s one approach might work for one person, another one doesn’t. But there might be multiple ways of doing it on the platform, depending on what it is and who’s sharing their information. 

So principals out there, if you’re listening to this, you can participate in one of two ways. You can be a vendor. You might have resources you want to share, and you can get a percentage of income on that. Or you might be a shopper, and you might be looking for some strategies. It sounds like mostly like tools, right? Like tangible things that you can. 

I think of Teachers Pay Teachers, right, where they go in and they can get actual downloadable materials for their classroom or for teaching and instruction and lesson planning or worksheets, that kind of a thing. So it sounds like it’s a similar concept. 

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just like that. It’s very similar to that. What we did was we thought had that mindset going into it, but we really wanted to make it so that like it was just for principals. That if you typed in like climate and culture builders or a data tracker, you’re going to have a bunch of different options that come up that’s related to your position and that’s written by people who are in that position too. It was really important for us for people to really be able to understand what that feels like right now to be able to support in that area. 

So we really tried to create a space that was just a really big support system for our school leaders because that was really important to us. The more we talked to them and we developed these relationships, like we just wanted to do something that could help them along on this journey. 

We started a Facebook page, and we started looking at what different things that like they like. We found that there’s a huge little niche of people out there that follow us that love just humor, some kind of like lighthearted way to end their day. So we try to come up with stuff like that just to bring smiles and laughter to them to lighten up some of the hard things that principals struggle and go through because we know that’s real. Anything we can do to kind of pick them up, that’s where we’re at. 

Andra: Right. 

Sarah: Yeah. 

Andra: Yeah. We try on our page too to put things that like draw them to be able to share something funny that happened that day or maybe even a struggle too. Because like we said, teachers usually have those colleagues in their building on their team or in their grade level or in their department that they can go to. But sometimes an admin team is isolated, and you don’t have that. 

So we really hope that our social pages and things that may be like conferences that we’re hoping to do in the future will really build not just the resources for our principals, but also that community for them and that place of support and understanding of like-minded people that have the same struggles and can laugh at the same kind of things that maybe if not, you’re going to be crying about. 

Angela: Yes. I know your story, but I would love for you to share your story. Like, what is your relationship with school leadership? Because I’m sure the listeners, you’re saying they and them and they’re like wait a minute, what’s going on here? So like tell the story of your relationship as it relates to school leadership, the position of school leadership. 

Andra: Sure. So starting like prior to either of these, like I kind of gave a little glimpse into earlier, both of us have our admin degree, and we’ve had that experience like in a school itself before coming out for Tailored and the Principal Exchange. 

Even being instructional coaches. I think that’s when we first got a glimpse of where the lack of resources because a lot of the times what we were doing when we weren’t working with students and things was creating those resources for the principal in our building. As we became more of the admin team, like seeing that those resources were missing. So it kind of started there. 

Then our relationship with principals and school leaders has really expanded as we started with Tailored, as we’re going around to support new teachers and do professional development and go to conferences through the lens of Tailored Education. We’ve talked with so many principals and they’ve shared with us that they are lacking in these resources. Or if we share something oh, I never thought of that and things like that. 

Sarah: Yeah, we spend a lot of time in school buildings now as more on like the consultant side of things. So when we’re working with brand new teachers who come in without licenses and helping them get through the steps to get there. We are working closely with those principals to see like who needs what. Where are we? We try to be super aligned with coaching that we’re giving, making sure it’s aligned to school initiatives and stuff like that. 

So in building these relationships with people, really it’s easy when you’re in your own building to think like is it just here? Is it just this district? Like what happens if I go somewhere else? But we’ve now worked with many different even states. We’ve been to several different states and worked with principals in so many school districts and it’s everywhere. So when we really stepped out of that and saw like that, it’s everywhere. We were like okay we’ve got to help. We’ve got to help do something.

Angela: Yeah. The reason I ask that question, just to reiterate it, is that sometimes principals and district leaders, we can think that if a person hasn’t been in the position or hasn’t served on the position then they don’t really know the position, which there is definitely a layer of truth to that. 

Why I love what these ladies are doing is that they’re approaching supporting site and district leaders from the lens of instructional coaching, the lens of teaching, to be able to provide you as the leader with the tools that bridge between the leader and the teachers. To help you from that lens of instructional coaching or from the lens of a teacher to really help you be a better leader, to help you have the tools you need in hand that will relate and be relevant to instructional coaches or to the classroom.

So that it’s not just principals leading the way leading principals. It’s a teamwork approach where we’ve got the instructional coach lens. We have the teacher lens and the site administrator lens all coming together to share ideas, tools, strategies that will allow you to do your job to the best of your capacity because you’re looking through multiple lenses. It’s not just this one area of focus. 

Because I’m pretty particular. I understand that leaders are like well I don’t want people coaching me if they haven’t done the job. This isn’t coaching. This is a marketplace. This is a venue for you to be able to go shopping and make your own decisions about what resources you need and which ones fit best. It’s just the platform. 

They’re providing the opportunity for you to go shopping and to have access to these resources that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible. Like they would be just kept in the hearts and the minds of the individual who created them. You’re giving people a voice and a space and a platform to share that, which then inspires other people to be like what can I share? Now we’ve got a community of collaboration and connection and building up one another, focusing on strengths, focusing on what’s working. It all comes together through these multiple lenses. 

Sarah: That was a big thing. We moved from being classroom teachers into instructional coaches. Then we took on major school leadership roles when like COVID hit and people got spread out. You had to step into those shoes, processing referrals, running IEP meetings, balancing frustrated parents, answering the phone calls, and just being there to step in all the time. 

That lens thing that you were talking about is so important because it’s so easy for teachers to be like well, they don’t understand what I’m doing or they don’t care about how hard it is in my classroom. As a school leader and as an instructional coach, a lot of times we found like sometimes teachers can struggle to see the bigger picture, like more than just on their hallway.

We really tried to, in all of the roles that we’ve had, bridge those gaps. Relationships has been our number one thing from day one before we even started any of this and helping bridge those viewpoints and just let everyone see that we’re all on the same team. Sometimes it’s just little bits of information that get lost in the middle. 

Andra: Right. The team that we were on before we left the school there were people from different backgrounds and stuff. So it was kind of we brought all those pieces. But as we travel around, we see if you’re the only principal in a school and you only came from one pathway, maybe the Principal Exchange platform can help you have those other lenses or bring those strengths that maybe you don’t have yourself in. 

From people who are really good at making data spreadsheets. That’s not your strength, but you don’t have a big enough team to have somebody on that team that has that strength. So hopefully the platform itself can play off that as well and provide that for people who have a smaller team, or maybe they have the same strengths and they’re looking for resources and things from people that come from those different viewpoints or that different pathway. 

Angela: Yes. Another thing I love about this, like it takes teamwork to such a deeper level, that we are all on the same team as educators. That we’re all out there, regardless of what state we’re in, what city we serve, what community, what school. We’re all trying to do our best to serve kids in the best way possible. 

What this does is it brings a layer of teamwork and collaboration that otherwise, like the way that the system’s currently set up, it’s like who’s the top school, and what’s the top score, and principal of the year, teacher of the year. There’s all of these, I don’t know, accolades within the field. But what it does is it individualizes us and it separates us and it doesn’t build team. It builds like a competition almost. 

This platform, it’s a space where you can feel safe enough to come in and share openly and collaborate, but it’s collaborating across the board, across states, across private/public, across K-12. It really is like a hub, like the town square, right? 

A place where people can come and everyone’s welcome and everyone’s invited. It’s a place where you can actually support one another without feeling that there’s any judgment or criticism or feedback or score or grades that you’re trying to hide from or trying to better or one up or whatever, right? That competition piece gets dropped out in this space.

Andra: Right. It’s just what do you need, and we hope that’s there for you, whether it’s on the platform or this community we’re trying to build right now through social media that hopefully transfers to like a conference with the same mindset. Where we hope principals are going to want to come in and they’re going to be the ones presenting at this conference and sharing their ideas and what’s going well in their schools and things. 

That’s the future of where we hope this is leading to. Maybe someday like a podcast where principals can share their stories and things. All of that kind of community that we feel like exists in a very small place right now that we hope is a growing place for principals. 

Sarah: Yeah, that was the idea behind the name is the principal exchange. We want principals exchanging and sharing, collaborating and bringing their successes and their struggles all together, you know? 

Angela: Right, right. Yeah. I love seeing opportunities like this because when I was a principal, and that was only 10 years ago, it was completely isolated. There wasn’t anything. Nobody was focusing on the school leader. It was the teachers. Right? Everything was on instructional leadership, instructional coaching, support for new teachers. Like we had the New Teacher Center come in and provide like mentors for the first two years of teaching. But it was like, here are the keys. Good luck.

Andra: Right.

Angela: That was it. So I did that for seven years before I saw a need. My niche is definitely like I’m a life and leadership coach. I’m a certified coach. So I’ve been in the job. I can coach on it, but I also mentor. But I’m working on time mastery, balance mastery, planning mastery, like emotional regulation. So that is a coaching piece that the work is within. Right? 

Andra: Right. 

Angela: This is like you get to go out into the world and you get to have that external exchange of ideas and connection and energy. Right? You just, you feed off of other people’s energy and enthusiasm and excitement and ideas. That adds to the experience for students, staff, and the principal, which is it’s such a beautiful collaboration of the internal work that I do with school leaders and then the external like connection and collaboration that you guys are offering as a platform for them. 

It’s beautiful to see that there’s people out here like hey, paying attention to the school leader. Hey, there is a need that is significant here. No one person can. Again, this is teamwork. There’s no one person that can cover all aspects of this job or what it entails. I love that you’re coming in really from the lens of I see the school principal struggling. I want to help them. I’m the instructional coach. I want to. 

They’re telling me their version, their perspective. Now we can take our talent and perspective as an instructional coach and be like hey, this is what we’re good at. This is what we see that you might need that could really help you. Now we’ve got a true collaboration. Not like there’s collaborations, and I’ve witnessed this like you’re playing collaboration, right? 

Andra: Yes.

Angela: Right. 

Andra: Right. 

Angela: There’s what it looks like and then there’s what it is. 

Andra: Right. You can try it, but does it actually work in our both parts or all parts really involved? Sometimes that’s the challenge. 

Angela: Yes. Yeah. It’s like, is this a safe environment? Do I trust people? Can I be somewhat vulnerable? Can I be honest? Most times it’s no, we shut down. So we play collaboration. But this sounds like it’s an invitation for people. Like they’re putting their wares out for you. You know, so again, like a market. Take it or leave it. But it’s a matter of like people are putting themselves out there for the benefit of the greater good, which I think it’s an act in education that we need to tap back into.

Andra: Yes. I think also the vendors on our page are so awesome. We weren’t sure when this started, how many people would be interested in this, and who even had time to do this and things like that. But they’ve been so awesome. 

What I’ve also seen and what we’ve seen is as vendors put their resources out, and there’s great feedback on it and they have success with it, maybe that’s helping with some of that burnout and things because they’re thinking oh, well, somebody else has used this and actually found value in it, and it’s made their day a little bit easier. So we’ve seen that piece of it too. So that’s been really neat. 

Sarah: Yeah. When we came into this, we also we ran into the idea of like we also don’t want principals like having to fork out a lot of their own money for this.

So within the system, we’ve embedded places for like POs. There’s W-9 forms, things you can print off so that you can use like school cards and school funds to pay for this stuff because it’s going back to your school. It’s to help your school leadership in your building. We want this to not be like well can I or can’t I? 

But we’ve really tried to think through all of the things that might be a hurdle in a principal’s way. We’re always open for feedback. So if anybody has any new ideas or is like oh, this would also be awesome to see, it really is a space that we’re trying to create just to support the school principal. 

Angela: Yeah. So, so, so good. So if listeners are dying right now and they’re like, I need to know all the details, all the information, give it to them. They’re going to be flooding over there. So tell them all the things.

Andra: Sure. So the website’s just theprincipalexchange.com. When you go there, whether you’re looking to be a vendor or whether you just want to check out all the resources that are already on there, the website is the same for that. We’re on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and all of that’s just the Principal Exchange as well. So we hope that, and there’s so much value in there. Of course, we’re posting and putting things, but value from other people and the vendors and things too. So it really is just a community that hopefully they’ll follow and find beneficials. 

Angela: Yeah. We’ll put all of those links in the show notes so you guys can check them out. Do you have any last words of insight of information that you want to share with the listeners out there?

Sarah: We see you. Like we see you out there doing the best you can every day, and we just hope that we can do a little bit to support you in return. 

Andra: You’ve been doing great things because everybody talks about teacher burnout and teacher turnover, but we see the principal burnout and the principal turnover, and we want to help that. We want to make this a better place and provide that support. So.

Angela: Yeah. Yeah. So, listeners, I just want you to imagine having coaching and mentoring plus the Principal Exchange in your back pocket. You’re going to be a rock star. It really take your school to new levels because you’re going to be doing the work that I do, the work that they’re offering. You’re going to have the tools and the resources across the board. 

That is what helps reduce burnout. It’s what makes you feel more impactful, more influential, build up your legacy as a school leader because this job is hard, but it doesn’t have to feel hard. The way that it feels less hard is when you’re doing the internal work that you need to do, building up your leadership skills, building up your emotional capacity, your leadership capacity, and having the resources you need at your fingertips so you’re not reinventing the wheel all of the time. It’s what it feels like when you’re in the position.

So I feel like this combo is just like the triple crown of school leadership, development and empowerment and resources. You have them at your fingertips. The links are in the show notes. Ladies, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the meet and greet. We had so much fun on that. I really do hope that this is the beginning of so much more availability in principal resources. 

Because this is just getting started, right? This is just the beginning of this program for you guys in this platform. I can see it really turning in to a thriving city market, like a little town square market, right? So I invite people who are listening. If you’ve got ideas and strategies and you want to be able to share something, reach out to the Principal Exchange. I’m sure on your website there is a place where they can get more information about being a mentor. 

Andra: Correct.

Angela: Then if you just want to shop and window shop and take a look, you can do that too. So there’s no harm, there’s no foul. It’s just pure support, pure fun. I’m just thrilled to see these types of resources popping up for school leaders as they have been over the last decade for teachers. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for this service. It’s so desperately needed. I wish I’d had it 10 years ago, and I’ll do everything I can to promote it, to get it into the hands of the people who need it most. 

Andra: Well, thank you. We really enjoyed being on today.

Sarah: Thank you so much. 

Angela: It was my pleasure. All right, empowered principals, have an amazing week. Don’t forget, check out the Principal Exchange and we’ll talk to you guys next week. Take good care. Bye. 

Hey empowered principal. If you enjoyed the content in this podcast, I invite you to join the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. It’s my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to experience exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. 

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Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 361. 

Welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck. 

Well, hello, my Empowered Principals. Happy Tuesday. And for those of you in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving Week. Hopefully, you are off for the week, but if not, hopefully you’ll be off by tomorrow or Thursday. I wish you rest, relaxation, pleasure, fun, sleep, whatever it is you need, a beautiful Thanksgiving celebration.

Set the intention to enjoy whatever Thanksgiving festivities that you are planning to attend or to host if you celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving here in the United States. I’m thinking of you all, so grateful for you, so happy for you, just so appreciative of the work that you do, education, the gifts that we have to offer our kids, and I have so much intense gratitude for the gift of coaching.

I have never been in a group like the Empowered Principal Collaborative. The energy in this group, the wisdom that these principals are sharing, the insights, the breakthroughs, the transformations, the aha moments that are being witnessed in this group. It’s phenomenal. And I hope that if you’re not in EPC now that you consider joining us one of these days because the breakthroughs I’m seeing are absolutely incredible and I’ve never seen so much happiness and joy and fun and excitement, energy. It’s really got an incredible vibe.

I feel so good being in this group. I’m the coach, but everyone is coaching, everyone’s contributing, everyone’s having conversation and uplifting one another, and it’s like anything else I’ve ever experienced as a school leader, so I hope that you consider joining us when the doors open again, which will be coming up in 2025, and put it on your calendars. I will keep you all posted.

In this week of Thanksgiving, I want to share a concept that helped me as a school leader and it’s really evolved the way I think in my personal life and I’d like to invite you to consider this concept and apply it at work and then at home because I think and feel so differently than I used to. I feel like this concept is in contrast to the work we do when we compare and despair.

So when we are comparing and despairing, we’re looking at our colleagues or other schools and their scores or our colleagues and what they’re doing or our fellow teachers, what our teachers are doing versus what other teachers are doing, or the scores, or district office, what they’re doing, what they’re not doing, or we get on Instagram, or Pinterest, or Facebook, or pick a platform, and there’s people out there doing the million things. We’re comparing our experience to theirs. We’re interpreting their experience, and then we are feeling bad about ourselves.

Or at school, we’re comparing who’s contributing the most. We’re looking at who’s doing it right, who’s doing it wrong, who’s contributing this amount, who’s not contributing, who’s adding value, who’s not adding value, like what positions are more important, what’s the priority than others, right?

I want to offer this. I believe that every human on this planet comes inherently worthy of love, appreciation, contribution. Everyone on this planet has something of value to offer. Everybody deserves empowerment. Everybody deserves a chance. Everyone has capacity and ability. Does everybody tap into that potential? No.

We, as empowered principals, create awareness that we have the opportunity and the invitation to tap into that potential. Some people don’t even have the awareness. They’re too busy comparing and despairing. They’re too busy focusing on what isn’t working or why they can’t or all the excuses or all the reasons as to why they don’t feel good. They don’t feel the way they want to feel. They don’t accomplish what they want to accomplish. They don’t have what they want to have. They don’t experience what they want to experience.

It’s not that they’re not worthy or they don’t have value to offer or that they’re not capable or that they have something inherently broken or wrong with them. It’s simply the thought that I don’t have value to offer, I don’t have worth to give, I don’t have the ability to create influence and impact.

Something I realized when I was in school leadership is that every person on the campus, and I mean every person, is contributing value. Every single person. They have the potential to create a lot of value. Our job, should we choose to accept it our mission is to help theme see their value, to feel their value, to contribute their value through inspiration, through feeling good, through creating an identity of value, that we all contribute value, we all are valuable. Here’s the most concrete example I can provide. 

You, as the school leader, people might view you as the leader of your school as the most important role. It’s the most valuable role. And then everything below you, like subordinates, they contribute value but less value. Right? So like, it’s you and then it’s your assistant principal or your office staff and then it’s your teachers rank high up there, and then perhaps your instructional coach, and then maybe it’s your special ed team, and then maybe it’s your intervention teachers, and then it’s your behavioral specialist, your support staff, your paraprofessionals, and then, you know, custodian bus drivers.

We think in hierarchy because our world is set up in hierarchy. I want to offer that it’s not a hierarchy. It’s different types of value but equal, shoulder to shoulder, side by side, hand in hand. That what we contribute is of equal value but different.

Here’s what I mean. What I contribute as a principal has significant value, but so does the teacher in the classroom. You take the teacher out of the equation, we have less value as a school. We want to value the value. We want to value the person who’s providing the value. When you are out a teacher and you don’t have a sub, you feel the impact. There is a loss of value that happens. We very much value having our teachers in the classroom, and we very much value having a substitute when our teachers, who are human, need to take a day off, or they’re sick, or they’re going to a wedding. We need to value the position and the person in the position equally. It’s not more or less valuable. It’s different value, but equal.

Empowerment. They bring empowerment, they bring value, they bring power to the room, to the campus, to the school, to our mission. Same is true with paraprofessionals. When you don’t have a paraprofessional, teachers are going to let you hear about that because of the value it provides to the teacher, the student, the classroom. Same with our custodians.

You lose a custodian, you’re without a custodian, and you’re the one cleaning up the trash and the vomit and the broken glass and unplugging toilets that kids have shoved paper towels down or cleaning up lunch, you know, milk spills. You value the person’s contribution. It has tremendous value because of the impact it has on you to be able to create your value, your impact.

I want you to think about every adult on that campus and the value that they provide by being in that role and offering the service they’re offering. Without custodians, what would life be like? Without bus drivers, without technicians, without maintenance, without our technology staff, without our instructional coaches, without our speech teacher, our resource teacher, or our behavior specialist, the nurses, the counselors, your attendance clerk, your office staff, your assistants.

And furthermore, at the district office, Sometimes we’re like, what are they doing up there? Not doing anything valuable. They’re sitting around. They’re not working hard like us. I used to think that, so I could say it out loud. And then I realized, equal value but different. It looks different. It sounds different. It feels different. But it’s of equal value. That’s what makes the school go round. That’s what contributes to the mission, the greater cause. For us, for them, for the greater good.

So, as you’re celebrating and giving thanks for all the amazingness in your life, consider the value and give gratitude and appreciation for every single person on that campus. You don’t need to do more. You can just feel it, feel the appreciation, smile at them, say something to them, wink at them, let them know, tell them the value. You don’t have to buy them gifts or, you know, go out of your way and spend tons of effort, time, or energy or money, you want to just express your appreciation, express the gratitude, acknowledge the value that they are providing to you, to the school, for the staff, for the students, for the greater good.

When your support staff feels just as empowered and just as valuable as the teachers, can you imagine how much they’re gonna show up if they feel so valued as a custodian, as a bus driver? I used to run sodas out on hot days or bottles of water out on hot days for the bus drivers.

That one act of kindness, that one appreciation, or I just would chat with them. I can’t imagine this day, the kids are wild, just letting you know have a good one or good luck or what’s coming up like how would that field trip go? Little minutes of connection can remind them of their value. It’s easy to feel unvaluable when nobody’s watching or paying attention and yes it is our job to know our own value, but as leaders, we have to know our own value but know that everybody around us is equally valuable. Just it looks different, it feels different, it shows up differently in a different context.

And then, what I have learned more recently is I can apply this in my personal life with friendships, with family members, relationships, equal value, but it looks different. I can appreciate the differences in approaches and opinions and in personal values when I understand that it’s equal but different, but it’s no less valuable than what I believe in, or it’s no less valuable than my way of doing things, or the reverse. I’m no less valuable. Like if someone tells me like you’re doing it wrong and it’s like no my way isn’t less valuable. It’s just different equal value but different

Try that on Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your holiday. Enjoy your celebrations. Take time for yourself. Make this about pleasure, rest relaxation and fun. I love you all, have an amazing week and I’ll talk to you next week. See you soon. Bye!

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 359. 

Welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck. 

Well, hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to this week’s podcast. So happy to be here with you today. And for those of you who are new, welcome. We are thrilled to have you here. This is one of my favorite places to be with all of you. Besides EPC, of course, besides my one-on-one clients, this is also one of my favorites, because we get to have real conversations about how it feels to be a school leader, and that’s what this is all about. And today’s episode is going to be all about how it feels to be a school leader and how you want it to feel as a school leader.

I was talking with a client this week, and she was telling me how amazing her teacher pre- and post-conference meetings were going. So she’s been doing teacher evaluations and observation. She’s having the pre-meetings. She’s having the post-meetings. And she said, you know, through our last two years of coaching, the power of coaching has no bounds. She said, I’ve realized that the goal is to feel good, and you’ve taught me that. The goal is to feel good, to feel good about myself, to feel sufficient in who I am as a leader, to feel good about my school and my campus.

And she said, I was thinking about this in terms of teacher observations. In the past, I have focused on what they are doing, the actions they are taking. I would ask them questions. How are you doing? What are you doing that’s working? What do you think you did that was effective? What do you think you need to do next?

And I’m listening to her share this, and it’s all about doing. We think about doing, we think about what we’ve done, we think about what we’re going to do next.

We get up in the morning, we have a to-do list, we’re thinking about it as we’re doing morning routine, we think about it while we’re driving, we think about what we’re going to do when we get there, and then we start doing, and then we get interrupted from the doing, and then we get frustrated that we’re interrupted, and then we get back on track and we’re doing the things, and then at the end of the day, we think about what we didn’t do, and we make a list of what still needs to be done, and then we drive home and we think about that to-do list, and then we go home and we do.

We make dinner, we hang out with our friends, family, help the kids with the homework, get the baths, get the routines, they go to bed, and then we’re thinking about the doing for the next day.

We are obsessed with doing. It’s all about the action. We’re thinking about the doing. And that thought process, that mindset, that approach to school leadership, it comes with a certain kind of energy. Trying to create change, work, grinding, hustling, forcing, manipulating. 

And when I mean manipulated, I don’t mean with ill intent. I mean trying to handle something, manage it, control it, maneuver it, manipulate like it, make it malleable and try to shape it and form it into the outcome word we desire. There’s a lot of forcefulness or trying to control intention behind this type of doing.

I think of it as Olivia Pope energy. It’s handled, it’s done, no problem, I’ve got this, which is not a bad energy. I loved this character, by the way. So for those of you who are younger than me, this was a show called Scandal with Kerry Washington as the actor. 

She portrayed a very powerful, strong, boss, badass woman named Olivia Pope. And I loved this character. I watched this series not once, but twice all the way through. Her confidence, her courage, her boldness, her energy, her style. Oh my God, her style.

I have a funny story to tell you. I actually dressed up as Olivia Pope for Halloween while I was a principal at school. And I have to tell you this, even better yet, I’ll never forget this day. I dressed up as Olivia Pope. I had the perfect dress, perfect outfit. I dressed up and everyone’s like, who are you? And when I told the adults, they were like, oh my gosh. Yes, absolutely.

It was a Monday. We used to do Leopard Launch,  which was the entire school would gather outside and we would celebrate the kids.

We would do our school song, our school spirit or chant. We would do all of our little routine for the week. We had announced Leopard Spot winners. We would give announcements for the week, just a big celebration of the entire school and the parents would all stand around awake. We did it first thing in the morning. 

It was a Monday morning. I’m in my Olivia Pope. I’m getting the comments. Thank you so much. The kids did their little we called it the monster bash where we did dances to music. It was so fun after that. I held a principal’s coffee. I walk into the multi. This is a total side note guys But it’s fun story I walk into the multi and I’m feeling like a boss like just the clothing you wear sometimes can make you feel Like a different energy a different person I’m walking in, I’m hosting this principal’s coffee, and I’m a few years in, so I’m not brand new.

This is probably my fourth, fifth, sixth year sometime. And I had a parent who was not having it with me. They were a hater. It was pretty ugly, but it was that day that that person verbally attacked me in the multipurpose room with hundreds of parents watching on Halloween day in my Olivia Pope outfit.  I  was so glad that I chose that outfit because there was something in me that stood strong, that I felt my nervous system reacting. 

I could feel the visceral reaction. My heart was pounding. My blood was boiling. Like my face was probably flushed. I could feel it in my throat. I could feel all the feels, but I had this sense of calmness and strength and courage that I just, I needed, I needed in that moment, I was able to handle myself externally and to see that  I was okay, that I was going to be okay, that I could handle that moment.

It was a very Olivia Pope moment. So I use Olivia Pope energy because one, I think women can relate to it. Two, another term for this kind of energy is called masculine energy. It has nothing to do with being male or female. It has to do with the type of energy. It’s just a label. It’s can be in males or in females.

And I will say that there are many leaders in masculine energy because the energy is confident, courage, bold, courageous, it’s kind of like you’re fierce, you go for it, you’re direct, you try to create an outcome with sheer force, with sheer hard work and grit and grind.  So  we’re sold as women or men that the ideal approach to leadership is this.

This boss energy, this badass energy, this fixer, it’s done kind of Olivia Pope energy. Get it done. Right?  And look, I want to say outright, like, this is not bad energy. There’s not good energy or bad energy. There’s not a right way or a wrong way to approach school leadership. And I think of it as like in the movies, characters, they tend to have like one character trait.

So in the case of Olivia Pope, we see this character being courageous and brave and bold and making these big decisions and taking big risks and getting in danger and, you know, almost not sure how she’s going to get out of it, but she always gets out of it. She’s like the MacGyver of women. And but what we don’t see is that she always wakes up ready to go looking sharp in her perfect outfit perfect hair looking amazing feeling good the next day taking on the next big battle like there isn’t a ton of representation for the humanness of the experience right being so exhausted mentally physically emotionally getting the beat down like they show moments of that but because it’s a show it’s a movie or a it’s a series.

There’s always the main character triumphs, they overcome, and we want that when we’re watching it, that’s a part of the joy of the show, right? But what we don’t see is where it doesn’t work out in the end, or where the exhaustion wins out, or something happens and it knocks her to her knees, and she’s just down and out for a week, or she’s having a weekend where she’s in bed depressed, we don’t see that.

We see her getting magically recharged and is up for the next day. So we get into leadership and think, Oh, we should be able to come in with this big leadership energy and solve things like a boss and have everyone follow our plan and do what they need us to do and that it doesn’t impact us. 

To the point that we’re physically mentally emotionally exhausted or wiped out. We’re kind of sold this machine approach or robotic approach to leadership, right? And that’s where I feel masculine energy. When people speak of masculine energy, that’s what it is. It’s just a term that’s applied to the type of fuel driving our actions. It’s a mindset, an approach that we believe is the right way or the best way.

And here’s the thing about it. I have leveraged masculine energy most of my life. As a little girl, I was pretty feminine, but I was the firstborn and I was raised to be masculine in getting accolades and accomplishments, learning to play the violin, being in choir, being in orchestra, being in band, getting good grades. I was the drum major my senior year in marching band. Going to college, I learned how to leverage masculine energy in a way that really worked for me. I was like, oh, this feels powerful, this feels strong, I’m successful, I’m creating results.

So masculine energy is an absolutely necessary part of school leadership, and it works a lot of the time. It also can result, if we aren’t conscious or aware, it can create results without fulfillment. We think that we should always be strong, be resilient, big, bold energy, and we associate this kind of energy with title, status, power, influence. Like I’m the leader, I have a title. It’s my responsibility. That’s what leaders do. That’s how we should be. It’s who we should be. It’s how we should act.

But the only problem with this approach is when it doesn’t feel good. When you’re playing the part or being the part, but you’re not feeling the part. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel aligned for you. You come in and you’re doing, doing, doing, whether that’s driven by perfection or whether it’s driven by comparison, or whether it’s driven by fear of what other people’s opinions, or what your boss might say, or fear of getting fired, or fear of getting, you know, haters, fear of getting negative feedback, or public scrutiny. When it’s that kind of masculine energy, you’re pretending. 

It’s not really who you are. You’re pretending to be that, and it doesn’t feel aligned. It doesn’t feel good. It’s not invigorating. It’s depleting. It’s exhausting. It’s like getting a beat down, and then getting up and coming back in the ring and getting beat up over and over again by yourself or others, right?

When masculine energy is not working for you, it makes you feel inadequate and exhausted and insufficient. There is a place for doing because we cannot create outcomes without doing. We can’t sit here and meditate all day and visualize a happy school and sit in our comfy chair for eight hours and it magically happens. We can’t just be, exist, without doing. But there’s an energy that fuels the doing. So it’s about how you’re feeling when you’re doing what you’re doing and who you’re being when you’re doing what you’re doing.

So there’s the forceful, must do, have to, urgent, fearful, controlling, perfectionism, energy of doing things. And then there is a clarity, centered, purposeful, intentional, calm, desire, enjoyment, prioritized, confident, assured, done is better than perfect energy, where you are centered and calm and clear and confident and trusting that the action you’re taking is enough because it feels good, it feels aligned, it feels sufficient. You’re not rushing through your to-do list to prove to yourself that you’re sufficient. You’re walking insufficiency, fueling yourself doing the things.

So you can choose to be forceful and have this intense controlling octane of fuel, which is the masculine. I’ve got to control title, power, status, and yet the urge to control, to win, to have it all. It’s an all or none thinking if you’re only using that fuel. Or you can choose a more calm and clear and centered and assured trusting octane of fuel, which is the feminine, the trusting, the faith, the patience, the internal strength.

If you think about it, people who are spending all of their energy trying to control externally, trying to control other people, trying to control outcomes, trying to control what the community thinks, what their boss thinks, what their teachers are doing, what their students are doing and they can’t handle if it doesn’t go exactly the way they want it to because of the way it makes them look or feel, those are very fragile leaders. 

It ‘s like, I’m trying to keep all the plates spinning and as long as I keep all the plates spinning and I have control over these people and control over that person and control over what this person thinks and I’m doing, and I’m doing, doing, doing, and I’m looking the part, as long as all the plates keep spinning, I’m good. 

But you’re running around, spinning all the plates, making sure nothing falls, because if one plate falls, you shatter. Your identity shatters, your emotional state shatters, your confidence shatters, versus when there’s an internal strength where there is alignment and self-trust, self-control, self-maturity, self-ability to reflect.

It’s an internal strength, an internal ability and capacity to manage your thoughts, to feel your feelings without exposing them and reacting to them and projecting them onto other people. Feminine energy is about internal strength, and then the masculine energy is taking that internal strength out into the external part of you.

So the key to balancing this feminine and masculine energy, this forcing, controlling, doing, I call it doing energy and being energy. When you’re being versus what you’re doing, the key to this balance is by what feels good for you. I call these feel-good goals. The way to reach a goal is, is this feeling good? Is it not feeling good? Does this approach feel good? Does it feel aligned or does it not? I take action, this is my goal. I take masculine action, massive action, I do through the lens of being, who I am, through the lens of feminine energy.

So I look at what I want to accomplish and the tasks and the actions I need to take and do, but through the lens of certainty, calm, trust, faith, clarity, alignment. And when I do that, the actions are fueled with a different kind of octane, with sufficiency, with safety, with certainty, with trust, with clarity, with constraint, because I don’t have to get 200 things done to feel sufficient.

I can do the three things that are my priority and feel sufficient. Knowing there’s more to do, but not needing to do it right now for fear that my reputation will get broken and shattered or my feelings will get shattered or somebody’s opinion of me will get shattered.

So the feel-good approach is about focusing on what feels good, using it as a compass, makes it so simple. So full circle, back to the conversation I had with my client with her teacher observations, she shifted the way she asked the questions. She didn’t need another program. She didn’t need another evaluation system. She simply shifted the questions from what are you doing to how are you feeling? What felt good about the lesson? Where did you feel you were in flow? What part of the lesson felt amazing for you? What are you most proud of? What do you think your kids were feeling? When were they feeling good? I noticed this. Your kids were really feeling good at this part of it. They really did a nice job here. What felt good?

When you ask a teacher how they’re feeling and you make the goal to feel good is the path. That means you’re on track. If it feels good, you’re on track. If it’s feeling a little crunchy, if it’s not feeling really good, that isn’t a problem. That’s just an indication that we want to look at that aspect of our teaching and ask ourselves what would make it feel good? 

If that part, if the transition between a whole group to individual work or a whole group to partner work or whatever the transition is, if that transition felt a little crunchy, we just look at the transition part of the lesson. We don’t need to revamp the whole lesson or change who we are as a human being or as a teacher. What about that transition didn’t work? Was it how you handed out papers? Was it how they selected partners? Was it how they walked back to their desk? Was it they forgot to get their pencils? What little specific thing felt a little crunchy there? And what would feel good? Oh, okay, let me add that in, or let me just shift that a little bit.

Asking people how they feel versus what they did puts them inside of their bodies instead of in their mind thinking outside of their body. And here’s what’s so fascinating about this work. When you ask people what felt good, they actually already know. 

And what you’re doing when you ask the question is you’re empowering teachers to go internal, to think for themselves. What did feel good to me? I have to check in with myself. Versus teachers who, oh my gosh, they’re gonna ask me what I did and I’m gonna have to come in with defense plan, a protection plan to show them, here’s my strategy, here’s what didn’t work, here’s what I didn’t do, here’s what I’m gonna do. It’s not about what they’re doing as much as it is about the fuel driving the doing, who they’re being while they’re doing it, the energy they’re fueling their decisions and actions by.

So the feel-good approach, the goal is to feel good, to feel good as a leader, and for teachers to feel good as a teacher, so that students can feel good as students. And then it becomes very clear. It rises up to the surface and their insights change. It shifts because they’re not focusing on the doing as much as they’re focusing on the feeling. This feels good. This doesn’t. Let’s keep this. Let’s shift that. It makes being an instructional leader so much more simple, because you aren’t trying to be the expert, the guru. 

You don’t have to bang your head about what should their goal be, and how should they fix it, and what should I suggest. You’re asking them what feels good to you and what doesn’t. That’s your goal. The little crunchy part there that you need to change, that’s the goal, pure and simple.

Now, where the work comes in for you is allowing yourself to focus on what feels good and what doesn’t feel good, and making what doesn’t feel good feel good. That’s what we talk about in EPC. So you can go out right now, and you can start asking what feels good to teachers. You can apply that right now. But where it’s going to get a little crunchy for you is when it comes back to you. 

And if your capacity to lead this change in the way that you engage in instructional leadership, moving from doing to being and feeling, Your capacity to lead this change or this shift is going to work only to the capacity at which you’re doing it internally for yourself. That’s what EPC supports you in.

It’s gonna feel very counterintuitive. Your brain is going to be like, what are you doing? We’re not working hard enough. We’re not spending enough time on this. We’re not getting our to-do list done. You are so failing in all of the ways. Danger, danger. That is where we shift our energy, our leadership energy, our focus, and our priority from masculine down to the feminine versus feminine to the masculine. 

So it’s not about doing enough to become somebody, it’s about becoming that person now, being the person now, feeling it now, and then you do. It’s a flip. And it’s kind of a mind blip because it’s not how we’re trained to think. It’s not how we’re trained to do. It’s not the approach that we were told works.

So you can forcefully create results in your life. People do it all the time. But is that the way you want the experience of school leadership to feel? I have found that in my experience, the feel-good goals, they’re so much better. They feel so much better. 

They work better. It’s like you’ve tapped into a success formula that doesn’t even make sense. Because it feels easier, it feels better. It feels like you’re in flow and just so much good is happening. And you’re not overexerting, overworking, overscheduling.

Give it a try, the feel good goal, and join EPC when we open the doors in 2025, I can’t wait to meet you. Happy, happy Tuesday, have a great week and we’ll talk to you next week. Take good care, bye. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 357. 

Welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck. 

Well, hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, if you’re new, drop a five-star review, leave a message, let me know how you are, that you’re in my world, I would love to meet you and say hello. I just love the podcast, and I love this audience, and I love the impact that we are having as empowered principals. It’s outstanding.

Today’s topic is going to be a little bit different than something I usually speak on, but I think it’s important to discuss whether you are considering this idea right now or nearly in your future, or maybe it’s 20, 30, 40 years off, but it also could apply to deciding to leave education. So today’s topic is on retirement resistance. 

I was coaching one of my clients who’s worked with me for years, and she’s near retirement. We’ve been kind of dabbling in the conversation of retirement for quite a while, on and off, on and off, on and off. This year, she said to me, I’m finally ready. We talked about that. We celebrated it, and we talked about it, and we were reflecting on the journey from being a school leader into considering retirement and then not considering retirement and then going back and forth on if retirement’s the right thing, or if resignation is the right thing. So there was a whole conversation on retirement or resignation to go somewhere else and try something different. 

So I want to talk about something that I think is actually quite common, which is retirement resistance, or if you’re not at retirement age, you could apply it to resignation resistance. It basically means you desire to leave the current position you’re in. You want to move to another district. You want to move to another position. You want to retire altogether from education and either try something else or live your best retired life. There’s something that you’re desiring.

So what I have observed is that the institution of education, the job that we are in, I feel like as educators, there is something so fascinating about it because it feels so personal. Because there is such a conviction, and we have a very specific set of leadership values, teacher values, educator values. We have strong opinions. We have a lot of passion around students and teaching and learning and the well-being of our staff and our students and the community. 

We’re very committed to the work even when it isn’t serving us, even when we don’t feel good or we’re disgruntled, or we are feeling emotionally, or mentally unwell because of the pressure and the intensity of the job. But what I have found, and this could be true in other industries but I can only speak to my own industry. I have found it to be true that there is a level of commitment that’s so profound that it almost presents itself like an addiction. 

So hear me out. When you think about people, humans, we are motivated by how things feel to us, the emotional experience we have. We seek out pleasurable things. We try to avoid pain as much as possible, and we try to make things as easy as possible. That’s the motivational triad of the brain. Seek things for pleasure, avoid things that are painful, and make things as easy as possible. 

We want to experience as much pleasure and joy and happiness and delight and success and accomplishment, fulfillment, all of those things. We want to not experience anything on the negative end, the negative emotional end of the spectrum, the pain, grief, struggle, frustration, embarrassment, discouragement, anger. There’s a million words that we use to describe it. 

We’re either feeling good, or we’re feeling bad. We’re looking to feel good, or we’re not looking to feel bad. We’re trying to avoid that. Then we want things to be easy, flow, fun, simple. We want things to click.

So knowing that, what I have found to be interesting is what motivates humans. Let me put it this way. When you think about video games and how they’re designed, video games are designed for you to fail, fail, fail, feel bad, get frustrated, but then like double down, and I’m going to get this level. I’m going to do whatever it takes to pass this level. We get dug in and we get so tunnel vision into figuring it out. Then we do it. We get that little hit of success. It feels really good. It’s just a moment. Boom, we pass the level. Zing, zing, zing, celebrate, celebrate. 

Okay, now here’s the next level. Guess what? It’s a little bit harder, a little more challenging. Even though you just passed that level and you got one opportunity to celebrate and have fun, you got this little hit of adrenaline or dopamine, and now we’re back at it. So there’s 99% grind, 1% hit, then a little bit more discomfort, and then a hit. 

I feel like school leadership is a little bit addicting that way. We have a lot of days that feel hard and then we get that good day. We’re like, oh my God. I could do this forever. This is the best feeling in the world. It’s euphoric when we have a great day or a great week, or we’ve solved a problem, or we’ve helped a student or a teacher, or we hired somebody we just absolutely love. Whatever it is, there are things that just make us fly. We feel like we could fly, and we want to do it forever. We want that emotional experience forever. 

But as you know, every celebration, every emotional experience that we have as a school leader, it’s temporary. We get hard day, hard day, hard day, ooh, a little bit of a good day here, or even a neutral day, which feels better than a hard day. We’ll take it. It feels good. Then we have a really good day, and we’re like oh, I love this. I want to do more of this. Hard day, hard day, hard day, hard day, hard day, and then another good day. 

So this client of mine for the last three years has been hard, hard, hard, hard oh, a little good day. I love this. I want to do this for kids. We get so addicted to this rollercoaster of it’s really hard, but a good day. It’s really hard, but a good day. 

I want to offer something. I want you to notice when you look at your experience in school leadership, is it half good, half bad? Are you in balance with like yeah, there’s hard days, but there’s lots of good ones too? Or is it there’s a few more hard days, but there are plenty of good days? Or is it it’s actually mostly really hard, and I might have a little bit of good that gets sprinkled throughout? 

Because that is actually how we’re wired. It’s like struggle, problem solve. It’s hard. Then we get that little hit, and it carries us into the next celebration. But for some of us, it’s so far between that we haven’t even realized how long it’s been since we felt good, since we’ve been rested, since we feel sufficient. We feel accomplished. We feel productive. We feel helpful. We are fulfilled in our job. We’re content. We’re satisfied. We feel amazing about ourselves, about our staff, about our school. 

So notice, take a moment to notice. On the balance scale, are you feeling really balanced? Is it pretty balanced, or is it actually imbalanced, and you’ve just gotten used to this is the pattern. It’s mostly bad, and I get a little bit of good. I want you to notice that.

The reason I bring this up is that this feeling, this balance of feeling, it’s one of the aspects we look at when we’re making the decision to stay or to go. So if you’re near retirement, but you’re like well, but the kids. I’m going to miss the kids. There’s so much more to do. This is some of the things I’ve been hearing with my clients who are near retirement. But there’s so  much more to do. I wanted to accomplish this. I didn’t want to leave this unfinished. 

Here’s what I have to offer. That’s simply another way of the success addiction grabbing you, getting your attention. It’s like but wait, if you leave now, you won’t get to pass this level. But then oh, wait, there’ll be another level. Then you won’t get to pass that. Don’t leave now because there might be another good moment coming.

So we get on this roller coaster of like I need to stay. What about these kids? What’s going to happen? So notice that if you are at all thinking about resigning to try a new experience or retiring to have a completely different experience, what I want to offer is notice the balance or the imbalance. What is driving you to stay? What’s driving you to go? Okay.

Now, here’s the beautiful thing with my client who was teeter-tottering back and forth. Number one, her son called her out. She was telling him, and he’s like, “Mom, you know you’re going to have a great day. Then you’re going to be like I can do this for 15 more years.” He’s like, “Don’t do that to yourself. You’re ready. It’s time. You have been so committed to your job that you lack rest. You lack relaxation. I don’t know that you know how to relax.” So he was kind of calling her out on some of these things out of love, of course. 

Then a few days later, she runs into a friend of hers, a former colleague who had retired years before her. She had never seen this person again since retirement. They sat down, they talked, they ended up having a conversation, cup of coffee. 

Her friend asked her, what about you? Because my client was asking all about the retirement. How’s it going? What does it feel like? What does it look like? What do you do with your time? She said, “It’s great. It’s this and that. But what about you? What are your plans?” She’s like, well, teeter-tottering, right? Notice this. Notice why. Is it because you think there’s something good around the bend, something good around the corner? 

I’m not trying to talk you out of your job at all. But what I am saying is be honest with yourself about your reasons for considering retirement and the reasons for staying. If it’s to chase the intermittent win or that next dopamine hit, if that’s all it is, it looks like this. Oh, I want to see my school through. I just want this one thing that I’ve been working on. I want to see it to the next level. I want to see it become accomplished. Or I want to get my vision here. Or I just want to graduate this group of kids. 

The problem is there will always be a group of kids who promotes or graduates. There will always be a project that you’re undertaking or trying to see through. There is never a finish line. You call the finish line. You decide the finish line. 

What happens is we get so caught up in the trap of, you’ve got to just do this. You have to be the one. You can’t leave. You’ve got to stay. These kids need you. These teachers need you. This community needs you. it’s true. You’re amazing. But also, it also will live on far past your time there. Your legacy will live on. 

But these teachers and students and families, they grow up. They move on. They get other jobs. They go to different schools. They move in and out of communities. You cannot lock yourself into a position for life because there’s something more you want to accomplish, or there’s another little addiction hit that you want to feel or experience. 

One of the brilliant things that my client’s friend told her was, if you want to retire, but you’re nervous about being so used to being so busy and feeling really guilty about not working or not contributing or not being at your school, a lot of us don’t retire because we think we’re going to feel guilty or we’re going to have so much time. What are we going to do to fill up our time? 

This is what the friend said. It’s exactly what I would have said because it’s my exact sentiments. If you’re considering retirement or you’re considering a resignation to try something new, embody that version of you now while you’re still in the position. Get online. Look around. What would you do with your time? Plan it. Envision it. Imagine it. Let’s say you just can’t wait to sleep in. Practice sleeping in on the weekends. If you can’t wait to work out, start working out now. Maybe you do it on the weekends or maybe you do it once a week.

Start becoming the version of you that is already retired. Start prioritizing things that you would do. You want to join a book club. You want to take up pickleball. You want to do a dance class. You want to just read books and do nothing. Start doing those things now. 

At the very least, if you don’t have the energy or the focus or the capacity to do it now, plan for it. Here’s what my life would look like if I had every day available. I’d sleep in. I’d take a walk. I’d get a cup of coffee with a friend. I would go to water aerobics. I would be in a book club, or I would learn to play cards. Whatever you want. That’s the whole point. You take back agency over your life. You take back ownership of who you are. 

This job, it’s a beast. It will consume every ounce of you mentally, physically, emotionally, psychologically. It will take and take and take. But what I see is that we’re a little bit addicted to those wins, to those hits. We never want to give that up because we feel guilty, or we’re afraid of what people will think, or we’re afraid we’re leaving somebody hanging. 

But the truth is this. You guys, I’ve done this. I had the same thoughts, the same fears. I resigned from my district of 22 years. It was such a hard decision at the time. I thought all of those worries and struggles and problems were going to come with me, and I was still going to worry about them, but I wouldn’t have the capacity to fix them. I couldn’t be further from the truth. 

What really happened when I resigned and started my company is that I had an entire new set of things to think about. I was thinking about starting this podcast and writing my book and learning how to market these coaching tools in a way that would support school leaders. 

I remember when I first resigned, I felt so guilty if I went to the grocery store during the week, like during a work day, quote unquote, if I ran an errand, or I was worried I’d be seen out in public. But I was like, wait a minute. I’m not even working for the district anymore. I’m an adult. Why am I feeling like a child who’s skipping school? That’s what it feels like. You go through these waves of guilt. 

I had to give myself permission like you are a grown woman. You can go to the grocery store on a Tuesday if you need to. No one’s controlling your life. It can feel in some cases, particularly site leadership, where you feel you’re under the control of the district leaders, of the policies, of the schedule, whatever. So it can feel so uncomfortable to retire or resign and be doing something else on a different schedule altogether. 

You’re going to have to work through like it’s safe. I have permission. It’s okay. This is my life. I’m the one in charge. I set the rules. I set the terms. I set the parameters of who I want to be. 

So if you’re considering retirement, if you’re looking at resigning and either getting out of education or trying something different in education or simply just trying a new school or a new district, you want to be planning for that now. You want to be thinking about it now. It’s almost November. You’re almost halfway there. It will come before you know it. You want to be able to start embodying what it feels like and envision who you will be as the version of you that has agency and control over your life and is no longer addicted to the very small hits that come with the happiness. 

Now, for those of you listening to this podcast and you’re like I’m so happy. I love my job. Of course, this isn’t directly for you, but I will say this. Do notice the dopamine chase. If you are chasing dopamine hits, notice it. 

Here’s what we do. When something good happens, we feel really good about ourselves, and we identify it as a good leader. When something bad happens, we feel terrible personally, and we make it something about us personally, and we tell ourselves, I’m not a good leader. This isn’t working. Notice the all-in-one thinking, notice the dopamine chase, and notice if you’re in resistance to a new experience, a new lifestyle. 

If at all you feel trapped, if at all you feel like education’s all you know, and you can’t imagine your life outside of education, please start imagining your life outside of education. This is a podcast to empower principals, but part of empowering you is reminding you that you are the one in control of your life. You have agency over your life. You get to make the rules, the parameters. You decide how many hours a day you work, how many hours a week you work, what district you work for. 

You can work hard for your district. You can work hard and love your job, but not if it’s consuming you, not if you feel afraid to leave. That’s not healthy. 

So contemplate this over the week as you’re listening to the podcast, as you’re thinking about your week, create awareness around why you love your job and are you dopamine chasing or do you genuinely feel a sense of balance, a sense of agency, a sense of empowerment over your life even though you are in school leadership. That’s the balance I help people with. 

We need people in school leadership, but we need them balanced. We need them to feel empowered. We need them to feel like they have agency over their life and some level of control over their time and how they spend it and when they say no and not just chasing the one good day every few weeks or the one good week every few months.

If you know somebody who’s in education who is considering retirement or isn’t happy at all, and they’re wondering why they feel so trapped, please share this podcast with them. They don’t understand why they feel so addicted to the job, why they feel so resistant to quitting or resigning or retiring. This is why. It takes a well-managed mind to be able to find the joy in all of the days and to manage those hard days and to not make it mean something about us.

Something to consider. Please share this. If you know anybody who is struggling or thinking of retirement but on the fence or thinking of moving up, promoting, resigning, getting a different job, any kind of transition they’re looking for, share this with them. Share the podcast with them. Share this episode particularly or the podcast in general because we want to help people make empowered decisions and to feel a sense of control and agency over your life. 

Your job should not be dictating every aspect of your life. If it feels that way, it really is time to reconsider if you have any resistance to resigning, to promotions, to a new change, or to retirement. So with that, have a beautiful week, and I will talk with you all next week. Take good care of yourselves. Bye. 

Hey empowered principal. If you enjoyed the content in this podcast, I invite you to join The Empowered Principal® Collaborative. It’s my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to experience exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. 

Look, you don’t have to overwork and overexert to be a successful school leader. You’ll be mentored weekly and surrounded by supportive likeminded colleagues who truly understand what it means to be a school leader. So join us today and become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country. Just head on over to angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more and join. I’ll see you inside of The Empowered Principal® Collaborative. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader. 

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode  355. 

Welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck. 

Angela: Hello, empowered principals. Welcome to today’s episode. I have a very special guest for you. Her name is Dr. Jamay Fisher. She and I have just recently contacted one another and felt like we became friends overnight. It was sensational to meet. 

We actually met, and I’m going to have her tell you a little bit more of this story, but we actually met through a different coaching program. We were both clients of a different coaching program, a business building coaching program. She found me in that program, and we connected. I loved her work and her message so much. It is such a valuable conversation that we are about to have to share with you guys today. 

I asked her if she could please be on the podcast because I think this message, this conversation will stimulate some really rich thoughts about the upcoming school year and just development as a leader.  So Jamay, welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast.

Jamay: Thank you, Angela. I’m really excited to talk more with you about this specific topic. Like you mentioned, we talked about a lot of different things, but we both really care about educators, and we really care about leaders in education specifically and the industry. We especially connected on that because I come from the world of education too. 

Currently, I advise experts on best practices in leadership public image. I have been in this work for a long time, and I come from the classroom just like the rest of us and we really care about education. So we’re going to talk all the things today about leadership and public image and all of that. 

Angela: Yes, and I love her unique niche in terms of the field of education. So definitely, you have the teaching background, you have the leadership background, you have administrative background. What’s interesting about the work that you do, and you can talk more about this, but what I love about your work is your work at the university level in teaching educators the art of PR. So can you just speak a little bit more about that aspect of your professional work? 

Jamay: It is definitely an art indeed. I did not come into education thinking I wanted to work in PR. I actually came into education because I wanted to leave PR. I worked on Capitol Hill. I come from the world of politics. My first degrees are in political science, and I worked on Capitol Hill for two members of Congress, one senator and one member of the House, both representing the state of Minnesota.

I loved it. I loved being in PR. I love being in press and handling the media. After a reelection scare, I wanted something that I wanted to do that was also just as exciting as working on the Hill. I decided that was education. So the member of Congress I worked for was a science teacher for St. Paul Public Schools before he ran for Congress. I had a lot of friends who are in education and educators. So that’s why I decided to be an educator too.

So I kind of came into education because I wanted to leave the world of PR. But as PR professionals know, once people find out you do PR, they think you’re going to do PR all the time. 

Angela: Yes.

Jamay: But it kind of was part of what I did because, I mean, I have a degree in elementary education and middle grade social studies. So when I went into teaching, I had the press in my room all the time, and I was interviewing at newspapers and there were always tours in my classroom. I always knew how to manage my students very well. We all knew what to do when the media showed up. It was like so exciting. I just thought everybody did it.

But come to find out because of the way I went about it, they wanted me to work at district headquarters. So I worked at district center, and I developed like superintendents, cabinet members, and things like that and the broader public about PR. I was doing coaching at that level. That’s what led me into getting the doctorate and doing this work at universities too. 

So that’s what brought me into this work. I am so committed to, especially in our current times. Some of us grew up when social media was not as big as it is now. The media is still the media, but it operates in a different way. I read an article this morning about teachers and educators and even members of education and leadership who worked in cabinet who lost their jobs because they did not necessarily know how to manage the media well.

I think that as educators who are committed to helping educators grow and being leaders in our own space, it’s important for us to know how to manage the media the best we can. I don’t think we’re typically taught that, so. 

Angela: Definitely not taught that. I agree with you. I think that media in general, particularly social media, is an entirely newer layer that has come into our schools. We have students with phones and access to media. We have teachers and staff, and we have families.

There is always a presence of social media on our campuses, which brings a new element into our leadership understanding and the skillset required of us to navigate that. 

I know I have been impacted by social media. Something as simple as like the newspaper, the local newspapers are now electronic. They have blogs, they have comments and opinion sections where people can go in anonymously or not and communicate and speak their opinions regarding you or your school or a staff member.

So there is an additional layer to be thinking about in social media. So tell us more about some of the teachings that you do with your students at the university level in terms of ideas, tips, strategies for them to think about as they’re entering into the field of education. 

Jamay: Yeah, so really when you really get focused on how you want to be, not only in your school, but we’re public employees, most of us. Even if you work in a private institution, you’re still kind of public. 

Angela: You’re serving the public, yeah. 

Jamay: We have a public image. You don’t have to craft your public image. It’s going to happen to you regardless if you do it or not. But if you craft it, it makes everything easier for you. So this is what I teach students in my public and my private practice. It really helps with making student outcomes easier, interacting with family, even moving around the profession. You get more power regarding how you negotiate contracts and the offers you get as educators.

When you specifically craft your leadership public image, it just makes it easier for you. I have to personally admit when I came into education, even though I come from the world of PR, I never really thought of investing in my own PR or my own leadership image. It’s just something that I naturally did. So I never really invested in it per se. But just like others, like we just kind of take on what the organization or the district is doing for their PR, which I think is important. We’re entities of that organization. 

But I knew as I went into the classroom and I had more media, I wanted to  help people beyond like the metrics of what the district counted. So that meant I needed to create an image. Like I wanted to help the profession writ large. So I knew at that point that I needed to create a leadership image.

This is what I teach my students too. I think we need to know about crafting an image because it is a personal preference. You don’t have to craft a leadership public image if you don’t want to, it’s all about preference, but as long as you know your reason why. Your image will be crafted. 

Image is like, basically when I think of leadership, public image in the world of education, it’s like reputation on steroids. So when you craft it on purpose is reputation on steroids. We all have a reputation regardless if we focus on it or not. But focus on it, it just makes things easier. 

This is sort of what I teach my students. I teach them from a couple of different lenses about how to do it. I think I have them first think about okay, think about your favorite like principal in your district or outside of your organization or your favorite superintendent. Like what makes that person great? Not only are they creating amazing student outcomes, I mean, of course they are, but what really makes them like so cool and so great? Think about that. I think that’s sometimes a great place to start.

Angela: Yeah, that is. I loved what you said that your image is being crafted whether you are doing it with intention and with consciousness or not. Because we are public figures, we do have a public image. We have a reputation. What I love about your work is that it gets really specific about the intentionality and the crafting of how to do that.

What I teach in EPC and the Empowered Principal® Collaborative is establishing your identity, how you self-identify. I think you and I were talking about this in our last conversation was, you first have to create your own identity. How do you identify as a school leader professionally? How do you identify personally? 

I think you and I can discuss this. My take on this would be to be in alignment with your identity as a person so that you’re not creating some false persona of who you want people to see you as an image, but being that person and being in alignment with that so that your image is actually you. 

Jamay: Exactly. That is really critical. The work that you’re doing with your leaders is really critical, and that’s definitely where to start. Then when you think about because that’s just going to help you create better student outcomes. It’s going to help you not have burnout and recruit better teachers. 

But in terms of public image, I’ve worked with a lot of superintendents and people who have really big images. It’s really important, even for our teacher leaders, because I was a teacher leader doing this, right? Think about our associations. Think about who you are. That’s the work you do with your educators. But then think about your association because a leadership brand image, one of the first things you should do or one of the things you should do is create your associations. 

So we’ll help you withstand turbulence in the profession as things change. As we know in the media, a lot of superintendents, teachers, and districts have a lot of turbulence in the media. So if you create strong associations, it will help you withstand turbulence in the profession. 

How I teach this is I think about educators who write op-eds. Think about where you’re putting the op-eds and what you’re saying. What outlets are you submitting op-eds to? One of the things that I teach my leaders in my public and private practice is like okay, where are you presenting? Which conferences? Just not anywhere, but on purpose based on what you’re teaching. Which, Angela, what you teach is knowing who you are. 

Angela: Yes.

Jamay: Are you presenting or are you publishing op-eds and outlets that reflect who you truly are? Or are you coming off as, quote-unquote, opportunistic? People kind of see that. Another example in education we use in terms of publishing is the ASCD magazines, like the Educational Leadership ASCD magazine is a very reputable publication. You might get a publication there or you might get an interview. 

You’re doing this because you have to know your big why. Like, why are you doing this? Most of the time people in education create leadership brand images because they want to make a bigger difference in the profession outside of immediately what they’re doing in their school. So that’s one way I think about creating a leadership brand image and how I teach it too. So. 

Angela: Yeah, that’s why I feel like our work that we do, it’s in conjunction with one another. It’s in combination because I cover leadership, right? So I’m doing, here’s how to be a new leader. Here’s how to approach situations. Here’s how to time manage, plan, balance. I’m trying to teach them that identity and stepping into their empowerment. I love this content because it’s so specific but yet it’s so critical because I do think, and I’ve had this experience personally. 

I wish I had had you as a mentor back 10, 15 years ago when I was a principal, but it matters. What people think of you matters. If you’re out of alignment with who you are, or if you are playing principal by day and like, I don’t know. It’s not aligned to you personally, like you’re one human. So.

Or if somebody misconstrues and now there’s a perception that isn’t you, isn’t in alignment with who you actually are, even that is something to have to negotiate, to navigate through because you have to deal with people’s misperceptions of your personality, your persona, your image. Like you said, navigate those storms. 

I have found personally and with my clients, the best way to navigate through the storms, and you’ll have them because you’re a leader. You’re a public figure is alignment. It’s knowing yourself so deeply that you tether yourself in what is true for you, where your values are, where you stand and owning mistakes. We’re human. It’s not to say you’re going to wipe your image squeaky clean for the public. It’s to own our humanness. I’m sure you have ways that you teach this.

But what speaks to me is you’re not here to avoid public comment, scrutiny, or misunderstandings. It sounds to me like you’re asking people to look at their image as a part of their job and craft it proactively knowing that, and those associations. That’s something I hadn’t thought of before. I appreciate that input because that is a part of image.

But you’re doing this proactively, but to strengthen who you are and grounding yourself in certainty so that when the storms hit, you are tethered during them. 

Jamay: That’s one element of it. So going back to creating these other associations in higher ed. Let’s use higher ed as an example. Each state in each region has their own like whatever associations, but let’s think about an example in higher ed, and that might be Harvard. So when people think of Harvard, they think of excellence, like the best in class, the gold standard. So when families or the public, they know Harvard, but when they meet you, they don’t know you. 

So let’s say, okay, they know Harvard, and they know what Harvard represents, but they don’t know you. So when they get to interact with you, you might have like your degree on the wall, which would say Harvard. Or they find out from your resume or your CV that you went to Harvard. So they create an association. Oh, Harvard represents like best in class. Oh, this person must be an excellent educator. So they associate you with excellence.

That goes back to where you’re putting your op-eds and where you’re showing up if you’re writing, like it’s a creation of association. They may not know you as an educator, like families or other people in the profession, but when they see your association, it’s about being intentional. Then putting things on repeat, not just doing it once. Not just going to Harvard and saying I tick that box, I’m done. But then putting it on repeat and sharing it with the public and then evaluating it through like inquiry or action research. 

I would say this is one thing that Angela is good at too. That’s why I think your work is so important, Angela, is because you help people with like inquiring about their profession outside of their institution. Like, I think that it’s important for educational leaders to seek like mentorship or guidance or advising outside their district resources because their district resources is very focused on the district. 

But when you want to craft a leadership public image, you need to think about okay, how can I impact my own practice and the profession outside of just what the district is doing and then putting it on repeat and sharing it. So that is the other thing I think that is important to teach when we’re doing the work on public image. 

Angela: Yes. This aligns to my message on in order to be, I feel like this is the equation that maximizes empowerment for school leaders. It’s your identity then creates an influence. You could add image into this too. Like your identity and your image creates influence, which creates impact and that creates a legacy. 

Jamay: Yes. 

Angela: So like, if you’re a leader who really strives to be the top of class, make the biggest difference, you have to identify as a leader. You go internal and identify yourself and then you create this image, and you would work with Jamay to build up that PR and that image of where you’re at and where you want to be. That builds up your level of influence, which generates impact. 

That is where you craft a legacy that goes so far beyond who you are today at this particular position in this particular school. You’re crafting an image for your life, your career. The ripple effect of that and the impact you’re creating, it has no bounds. 

It’s limitless because you are expanding your reach. You’re expanding your image, right? To not only be, I’m the principal at this school right now. I’m an empowered educator whose legacy and image continues to evolve and expand throughout the course of my entire career. 

Jamay: Exactly. That’s a commitment to the profession and the career. Like a lot of educational leaders can’t withstand turbulence because first of all, they haven’t created a series of association. It’s just not one. Let’s say you didn’t go to Harvard. You don’t have to go to Harvard. You could do anything you want, but it has to be a series of associations, and you have to put it on repeat. 

That’s where it’s a lot of distractions, especially as leaders. We get pulled in a lot of directions. So it’s important that we put our image on repeat. It helps us to withstand the turbulence that might come up in an organization or like just in life in general. You can withstand it better when you put it on repeat, you share it, you make more associations. 

I think one thing that I noticed too, a lot of people don’t do this, clearly Angela and I are fans of doing this, but a lot of educators in leadership like who are like teacher leaders or licensed admin, some of them worry about giving up their successes now. They worry that they’re going to lose what they’ve already done. So they decide that they don’t want to grow an image because images grow over time. Like it’s an ongoing associations and it evolves, everything in the universe changes.

So people are worried okay, I’m just going to stay at this school. I’m going to stay in my little zone, and I’m not going to do anything more because I’m worried that I’m going to lose successes, the success that I’ve created. But one thing that we know about leadership studies in general, especially creating a public image in educational leadership is the more you are intentional about your action research and the more you are doing this on repeat and sharing, you actually get clearer and clearer, and you grow your impact. 

Angela: Yes, that is definitely an important point. You can stay at a school. You can stay in a position. It’s not about like growing in terms of like climbing the corporate ladder per se or like running around and doing as many positions as possible to like rack up experience. 

It’s less about that and more about I call it the deeper work, like the under the surface work where it is refinement and nuance and detail and growing and exploring and expanding ourselves, whether you stay in a position or whether you grow. Staying in a position because you’re afraid is different than staying in a position because you’re taking it to the next level.

So your image could be a person who stayed in an organization for 10, 20, 30 years, but did you continue to evolve that organization and contribute to that organization and to expand your ability to lead and to leverage and to inspire people throughout that organization for the duration of your tenure, whether it’s two years or 40 years, right? 

Jamay: Yeah, exactly. Doing that is what makes you grow it. You get clearer and clearer the more you grow your image and the associations you make because you’re making trade-offs. Angela, you address a lot of matters in burnout. A reason some people have burnout is because they’re not clear about their associations and their trade-offs. 

Angela: Can you say more about that? 

Jamay: It’s always about, okay, I’m going to stop doing this because I want this to happen instead. So kids are always going to learn. You don’t have to create a public image for kids to learn if you’re doing your job really well. Kids are going to learn. But people come to you and they ask you to do things that are not necessarily related to the kind of impact and change you want to make in the profession.

So you will have to say no to that. For me personally, that was one of the harder things I had to learn in terms of growing my own image as an academic and a mentor advisor in the world is that I can’t do it all, but I wanted to make a bigger impact. So how can I make a bigger impact? That’s different for everyone, but it is constantly a matter of trade-offs. So doing things that will help you help more people in the industry, so. 

Angela: Yeah, no, that’s constraint. I think constraint actually is one of the tickets to success because we spread ourselves a mile wide and an inch deep versus like I’m going to hone this skill, or I’m going to hone this area of expertise, right? Doctors, general doctors, right? Then there are like specialists, and they can take that work to a level that when you’re trying to learn it all, you’re not going to be able to be a specialist in that area. 

So that’s another thing to consider in terms of your image and your PR stance is like, are you going to be an expert in a particular area of education? Are you going to be somebody who’s like done a breadth of experiences? You’ve tried a lot of seats on the bus. 

There’s no right or wrong way to develop your image. It’s the image that you want to create, but it’s about being conscious and intentional with that creation of that PR image and developing it in a way that continues to serve yourself, your organization, and the greater good, right, of education at large.

Angela: Yeah, and for those people in your audience who have written dissertations or considering writing dissertations, this is kind of when you think about it in terms of like higher ed and writing a dissertation. Okay, so when you write your literature review, even if you’re doing action research in a school or inquiry in a school and you’re not doing it for a dissertation but you’re doing it for professional development. Like there are certain things you include in the lit review and certain things you don’t include in a lit review. 

So let’s say you’re working on like teacher retention. So you’re trading off writing about teacher retention versus like standardized testing. We are in the industry of helping kids learn. So like whatever you do, like you’re still going to help kids learn at the end of the day, but you’re just focusing on, and this is for leadership public image too. Like if you want your expertise to be on teacher retention, you might not show up on an interview related to like standardized testing, for example. So it’s just a really always a thoughtful, intentional choose this or this. 

Angela: Yes, can I switch gears a little bit for a moment? Because I think we talked about this last time we spoke as well, and shifting gears from like the personal identity and the personal image and what you’re crafting for yourself and your legacy in terms of your career. Thinking about how you craft the image of the school you’re working for. 

So I work with a lot of principals or perhaps superintendents who are listening, crafting an image for their organization, whether that’s at the site level or the district level. Do you work with people on that topic?

Jamay: I do, and I think they go hand in hand. 

Angela: Yes. 

Jamay: So they do go hand in hand. you want to definitely think about like your school improvement plan, like your SIP, or your like strategic plan for the district in terms of how you, the matters of public image that you’re working on. So they definitely feed into each other. So let me make sure I answer your question.

But yes, I think these things all work together. I think they, I believe that as educators committed to the profession that they should be in accord. So I think that they need to inform each other because that’s how you excel with the community members, with like creating like strategic plans. It’s kind of how you get things done in the district too. When you think about, okay how can I craft this strategic plan? I’ve done strategic planning for school districts and many of your listeners have. So how can I craft this strategic plan in a way that aligns to the values of this particular community? 

So it’s similar. It’s crafting your own personal PR is similar to the work you do at the district level. It’s just thinking about it in a broader way. That’s all. 

Angela: It makes it feel doable and aligned, right? So it’s like, if I’m crafting and doing this work at an individual level, I’m going to expand that into the organizational level because that way you’re not trying to craft two different messages or two different kinds of images.

I have been working with people on we’ve been hearing in the industry that there is a shortage, right? There is a teacher shortage. It’s hard to hire staff. I’m coaching people to stop telling themselves that because that is actually when you keep telling yourself, there’s nobody out there who wants the job. There’s not enough people or there’s not any good people. That’s the experience you end up creating for yourself. 

So you want to be cautious about how you speak about incoming people. There are people graduating all of the time. There are people moving all of the time. One of the things we’re working on, and I think your work would really expand this message to schools out there, we need to market our image, our brand per se, to the people who want to work at our school.

If we want to attract high quality teachers or new assistants or paraprofessionals or maintenance staff, whoever you’re hiring, anybody, we want to share the strengths of our school and the image of our school in a way that makes people more interested in wanting to learn more and wanting to work with us.

Because our brand isn’t just about who we are. Our brand is about our team and the culture of our school and our values in the organization and what’s in it for people. Why should I apply to this school or this district? Would you agree that is part of image as well? 

Jamay: It is. Not only, like you said, it’s our own individual leadership image, but how is it complementing the district? What you focus on, you get more of. So if you’re talking about the lack of XYZ, the lack of like teachers in the profession or hiring, you’re going to get more of that. 

It’s also okay, what can we control? Getting back to focusing on like empowerment, the core of your work, and how can we be empowered around this instead of outsourcing a broader narrative? Like not saying I don’t believe that we should be Pollyanna about certain things, but what we do focus on, we get more of. So if you want to focus on a certain lack, you will create more of that lack.

So how can we make, how can I, as a leader, when I’m out like writing op-eds, doing ASCD work, presenting at international and national conferences, how can I contribute to the image of the organization I’m affiliated with? So how is my work complementing the district? 

If I’m going to conferences and I’m constantly talking about how there is a lack of talent, is that really helping me or the district? It’s not. How can we focus on like what we can control instead of outsourcing instead? So. 

Angela: Yes, yeah, no, that is so great. I think when you are intentional with crafting an image, a PR image for yourself and perhaps for your school, that is the conduit through which you communicate your identity, your school’s identity, your district’s identity about this is who we are. This is what we value. This is our approach. These are our kids. This is what we highlight. This is what we focus on because I believe at the end of the day, your image, your branding, your personal, what people think about you, it all comes down to the energy behind you. 

What you believe about yourself, what you believe about staff and students, what you believe about the work that you’re doing. The more empowering thoughts that you think about yourself and your image, and you have thoughts about the public and they have thoughts about you, right? This is that dance of image and public relations. It really comes down to the energy exchange between you and the public. 

Jamay: Right, exactly. Because we are representatives, I believe in my work. I think when you affiliate yourself, that goes back to associations. When you are associated with a certain district, you’re also associated with their strategic plan, even though you are growing this complimentary leadership image for your own professional life. I think it helps your professional life. Angela would agree, but it should be parallel. 

Because if it’s in contrast, that’s where problems start. That’s where you might lose your contract or you don’t create advancement in your district or in the profession because you’re out of alignment. That was the news story I read in the paper this morning about educators who have an image that’s not an alignment of their organization. It’s a relationship. So we want that relationship to be complimentary. If we’re focused on like a shortage of what the narrative is around the shortage of teachers, that’s what we’re going to create more of. 

Angela: Yes, definitely. I just want to reassure you guys, just as a side note here, there are people who want to work for you. They want to work for your school. The more you see how amazing your school is and you focus on its strengths and you speak to those strengths, you will attract people who want to be at your school, who desire to support, whether they’re support staff or certificated staff, there are people out there who want to work. So keep that in mind. 

I have been coaching principals on getting those positions filled before day one. I have been so impressed at their belief and trust and faith in the process and it’s working. So just, if you’re out there and you’re listening to this and you’re frustrated about hiring, just know like, think about your image. What image are you portraying to the public, to your community about what it’s like to work at this school, what it feels like to work at this school, the benefits of working at this school, right? 

It really comes down to how people feel, how they feel about you, how they feel about the district, the culture of the district. I really think this work is so essential. Jamay, I don’t feel like this is a conversation schools are having, but I do think it is one of the missing puzzle pieces about its image, but below that, it’s about how we feel. Like image is about how one feels about themselves, about how other people feel about us. You said relationship, and I think that’s the word here. It’s the relationship you have with yourself and others and the community at large.

Is there any final thoughts or words of wisdom or insight that you can share with these site and district leaders that are listening to the podcast today? 

Jamay: I believe we covered everything. Angela and I could talk about this forever, but that’s what PR is, right? It is relationships. It’s a public relationship. It’s the relationship, not only like Angela mentioned, first of all, any relationship we have with anything is first of all about the relationship we have with ourselves. 

So first you’re thinking about the relationship with yourself and then thinking about your associations and relationships, what matters outside of you and how these certain things become like circumstances. Like a so-called teacher shortage, that can become a circumstance if you only focus on the right thing, like focusing on the right things and helping kids learn and growing our image and impacting the profession that way is the work that we’re committed to. So I think we’ve covered everything. This is so exciting. 

Angela: I know you and I could probably talk for hours, but if the listeners want to learn more about your work or reach out or contact you, what’s the best way for them to do that? 

Jamay: I’ll keep it easy. I will just go to Instagram. My Instagram handle is JamayFisher, that’s J-A-M-A-Y, Fisher, F-I-S-H-E-R, and that’s where you can find me. I also have there where I have my academic papers written for the research at universities I’ve done. I have public pieces written like an ASCD, for example, in leadership. Just I would love to start a conversation with anyone who’s interested. So that’s where to find me.

Angela: Yeah, and we’ll drop some links in the show notes for people to get direct access to Dr. Jamay and her work. We’ll put her Instagram handle in the show notes as well so that you guys can just click and have immediate access to her and her work.

I really hope that at some point you and I can do a collaboration, whether that’s a webinar, a training, a conversation, or developing some kind of process for people, because I think our work blends so beautifully together. Your expertise plus my expertise, I think it just up-levels the work that our school leaders are doing and supports them at just a deeper level. 

Jamay: Thank you, I cannot wait. 

Angela: We will be talking more in the future. So thank you for your time. Thank you for being on the podcast. It’s such a pleasure to have met you and to now call you a friend and to collaborate with you again in the future. It’s going to be a lifetime of work together. Thank you so much. 

All right, everybody, that’s a wrap. Have a wonderful week. Enjoy this podcast. if this resonates with you or with somebody that you know, if you would please share this podcast link out with your fellow colleagues, we would really appreciate that. Because our goal here is to support as many school leaders as possible and to expand your reach, your legacy, your impact to a limitless number of students and the lives of their families for this moment on.

So please feel free to share this with anybody who might enjoy this conversation. Thank you so much. We’ll talk to you guys next week. Take good care. Bye. 

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